Kansas's Self-Destruct Button: A Bill to Outlaw Sustainability

[xchrom]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-09/kansas-s-self-destruct-button-a-bill-to-outlaw-sustainability.html


A Vortex 2 rotating supercell severe thunderstorm near Dodge City, Kansas. Photographer: Ryan McGinnis

Kansas, I love your sense of humor.

It seems like every time the Sunflower State pops up in my news feed, it’s for something like this: House Bill No. 2366, a proposed law that would make it illegal to use “public funds to promote or implement sustainable development.”

Kansas, the place where I spent my formative years skipping school to go fishing in farm ponds, is populated with thoughtful stewards of the nation’s breadbasket. It also has a habit of turning reason on its head. The state famously dropped evolution from its educational curriculum in 1999, along with the age of the Earth and the history of the universe, for good measure.

Now the state’s “Committee on Energy and Environment” is proposing a law that would prohibit spending on anything that won’t set Kansas on a course to self-destruction. House Bill No. 2366 would ban all state and municipal funds for anything related to “sustainable development,” which it defines as: “development in which resource use aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but also for generations to come."

[Kolesar]

1. I love the way this is written:

it's tongue in cheek, and mildly pointing out the massive pandering to the oil industry. I also like the references to nature.

[Xipe Totec]

2. If only we could harness stupidity as a renewable energy source... nt

[Vinnie From Indy]

3. Kansas GOP politicians appear to have cast aside even a symbolic

fig leaf to cover the "in your face" corruption of some in the state legislature. The man that is the head of the Energy committee and author of the bill also happens to be a geophysicist and has roughly 80 oil and gas companies as clients in his private occupation.

I wonder what kind of silly name they can come up with for this bill.

[hunter]

4. It's tough competing with Somalia.

Kansas can't win until it's a desert, everyone has guns, and the best and brightest move to New York City and get good jobs driving cabs.

[wtmusic]

5. 'Conservation' is excluded (it's ok to conserve, but not to sustain).

Fucking nutcases.